


Too Close to the Flame

by suyari



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, R Plus L Equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 21:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/pseuds/suyari
Summary: Winterfell is burning.





	Too Close to the Flame

Winterfell is burning. 

Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell comes to a halt just outside the walls of his keep. His horse will not ride through the gate, but he cares not. Leaping from the beast, he charges through the open gates to find most of his family in the courtyard. Catelyn is in her dressing robe - still not accustomed to the cold in the North, even after so many years - each of her arms being held in restraint. She is screaming Arya’s name. 

His eyes scan the space around them. Sansa is clutching Rickon close. They are wrapped in someone’s cloak, far too large for them, but enough to keep them from catching chill in the night. Robb is standing a few feet away, a shaken Bran in his arms. Bran’s clothes have patches of soot on them, parts burned away upon his sleeves and about his ankles. From what Ned can see, he is unharmed. All of his children are staring up at their home with wide eyes that make his stomach sink. 

“What’s happened?!” he shouts more loudly than he’d meant to. 

“Ned!” Catelyn cries, turning at the sound of his voice. The men holding her back release her as she runs to him. She is trembling and he cannot be sure whether it is because of the cold or from fear. “Arya! Arya’s still inside!!” Her hands rake at his jerkin fitfully. He can do nothing but wrap his arms about her. The fire is too bright, has consumed too much. If his daughter is still inside, she is with the Old Gods now. 

“Where’s Jon?” he asks. His family have come to huddle around him, but they are not all present. 

“I went to wake Mother when the fire reached the family halls,” Robb says, eyes fixed on the stones aflame before them. He is speaking so softly, as if he is afraid of his own words, or that he cannot believe them himself. “Jon woke Sansa and told her to fetch Rickon while he went to get Arya and Bran...The flames were too high. He called for me from above. Threw Bran from the window. I caught him. Jon was trying to calm Arya, to throw her down to me next when the roof collapsed.”

“Your son ran into the fires thrice that I saw,” Ser Rodrik offers from his side. He too is looking to the flames. “He was the one who woke the Castle, alerting us to the threat. He would leave no one behind.” 

That they are acknowledging Jon as his son speaks of how badly his Master-at-Arms fears for the fate of his children. 

“Could they have fled to the crypts, Ned?!” Catelyn asks desperately against his chest. “They would be safe there!” 

The looks upon his son and Ser Rodrik’s faces indicates they believe Jon and Arya to be caught beneath the roof. Ned knows Robb well. If he thought his siblings were alive, if he had any inkling that it may be so, he would have run in after them. 

“Do we know what started the fire?” he asks. He must be the Lord of Winterfell now. He must not think of his own loss. Not yet. There will be time enough later to mourn. There will be far too much time. 

“There seems to have been an explosion within one of the forges.” 

Jon would have certainly known first then. And by the Gods, it was a miracle he’d even survived it to brave the fires at all. Thinking of Jon reminds Ned he hasn’t seen Theon. 

“Where’s Theon?”

“Lain up in the stables, my Lord,” Maester Luwin replies. “Your son had cause to carry him from the flames.” Maester Luwin, it seems, agrees with Ser Rodrik. 

“Will he live?” 

“Yes, my Lord. Though he may be abed for quite a while.” 

“Is anyone else injured?”

“A few of the guards. Some servants suffered minor injuries.” He notes Ser Rodrik - who is usually so thorough - has not mentioned the dead. 

“How many dead?” 

“We won’t know for certain until the morning,” Maester Luwin says quietly. 

 

It takes hours for the fire to burn out. 

The sun has risen high in the sky by the time it is safe to enter the remains of their home. Robb wants to go with him to search for Jon and Arya, but Ned will not let him suffer such a fate. It is a thing which he knows cannot be unseen. A thing which will haunt him for all the rest of his days. He does not wish such a thing to plague his heir, who has loved Jon most fiercely all their lives, and who yet still rocks his siblings to sleep in the night when they wake from bad dreams. One day Robb will be a man and Ned will not be able to shield him from life so much. However, today his son is still a boy. A boy who has not yet shed any tears, whether in sorrow or grief. Ned would have him be a boy for a while longer. He charges Robb with caring for his mother and siblings, knowing full well Robb disagrees but will obey. 

They find two dead just shy of the door. They are not burned quite so badly, laying still upon the stone floor covered in soot and ash. Maester Luwin claims they have died of the smoke, and they are taken away to be prayed over and dressed for burial. Three more they find in the kitchens. They are not quite as pretty. The fire had found and consumed them. There is little to bury, but Ned orders it done anyway. 

They walk through halls and corridors, checking every room. Their dead a total of five confirmed for most of the building. There is no sign of Arya or Jon and Ned wonders if perhaps they did make it to the crypts after all. He is struggling with himself over whether to head there immediately to begin searching or to finish the main keep first when Maester Luwin’s voice settles it for him. "My Lord!"

“Smart lad,” Ser Rodrik says as they approach the great hearth in the main hall. 

Several water casks have been upended about it. The logs no longer present within. In the far corner Jon’s skin is blackened with ash and soot. His clothes have all burned away. Otherwise, he looks as if to be merely at rest, as if he’d simply fallen asleep there. His back is to them, his entire body curled in upon itself. 

Ned knows the way a body can contort in the flames, knows how it can twist and curl, the heat of the flames altering the very nature of a person. And yet, Jon’s limbs are lithe and long as ever. His hair has all burned away, but there are no blisters against his scalp. They settle around his fallen form, an eerie quiet draped about them. No one moves to disturb him. Perhaps his companions are as afraid as Ned that one touch will ruin it all. They are so bewitched by what they’ve found, they almost miss the twitch from the small figure in Jon’s arms. 

Arya coughs and Jon moves and the spell is broken. 

Although he wants nothing more than to drag his children from the hearth into his arms, Ned knows he could yet kill them, if not do them serious injury, and clenches both hands in his breeches at the knees as Maester Luwin collects himself and steps into the hearth to check on them. 

“Miraculous.” The statement echoes up through the floo and all about the room. “They are barely hurt.” 

He helps Jon up and Ser Rodrik is quick to clasp both of the boy’s shoulders as his unsteady legs propel him from the hearth. Ned takes his cloak off and wraps it about his shoulders. Catches his face in his hands and lets his eyes search. They rake over Jon again and again, but can find nothing seriously wrong. He looks odd without any hair, but is otherwise hale and whole. 

Jon is a boy, near enough in age to his manhood that it is perhaps unbecoming to have his father kiss his face and over his head in such relief. Ned does it anyway. Then takes Arya into his arms. She is more injured than Jon. Although, her injuries seem fixed to her very extremities, as if limited to the parts of her that were left unshielded. 

Ser Rodrik wraps Arya in his own cloak and they carry the children from the ruins of the fire. The crowd that instantly swarms them seems keen to know the outcome, however, they are forced back by the bellows of Winterfell’s Master-at-Arms and the orders of his nephew. 

“Keep my family outside,” Ned tells Jory, as they escape into Maester Luwin’s domain. “Even my wife.” 

Jory nods grimly, eyes trying to catch sight of Jon or Arya. They are both firmly enveloped in cloaks however, so there is little to assuage him. 

Maester Luwin makes a tea for Jon and Arya to drink to help clear their lungs of smoke. He bathes them clean and slathers creams across their skin and ties bandages about them both. Ned at first thinks that perhaps he has missed some wounds on Jon. Perhaps, there were injuries he was not privy to, for not knowing how much damage such an act could wreak upon a body. 

It isn’t until much later, once Jon and Arya have been lain in bed and their siblings and Catelyn are left to faun over them - and what a sight that had been, Catelyn wrapping Jon up in her arms and kissing and caressing him; Ned is fairly certain any animosity she may yet have still nurtured toward Jon has been completely eclipsed by his heroic deeds - that Maester Luwin takes him aside. 

“I thought it best,” the Maester tells him quietly. “To treat Jon as Arya. No one will question their similar injuries, and it isn’t as if anyone but myself will be tending them, so there will be no one to say otherwise.” 

“Thank you, Maester,” Ned replies. Maester Luwin is not a stupid man. He has seen a great many things, has learned and heard tell of even more, for his clever mind to not be touched by what he has witnessed. 

“Indeed, Jon has proven himself to be a real treasure, has he not?” 

“That he has.” 

“How wonderful it must be to know the flames and never burn.”


End file.
